Depression is a complex mental disorder, if not an illness, that is experienced on different levels. A less physically apparent symptomatology is one of its main characteristics. Its bruises and scars are internal and emotional, but no less painful, and it is precisely in the lack of evident signs where its unintelligibility relies.

One in five adults experience depression in the United Kingdom, with records indicating that women are more likely to seek help than men. On the other hand, the most common death cause for men under the age of thirty-five is suicide. Such statistics reflect the fact that in spite of it being so common and present in the human condition, living with depression continues to be stigmatised against. They also show how certain modes of behaviour based on masculine and feminine stereotypes affect mental health, indicating how men may hide their true feelings and emotions, by thinking of them as a sign of weakness. As a person who has also lived with the condition, I became increasingly motivated to present those unspoken weights carried by people. For that reason, the following project explored the stories of three men living in England, who are diagnosed with different types of depression: mild, manic and major. In the challenge of representing something so private and not readily perceptible, sound and photography were employed as a window into their experiences.